Chapter 7

Lucien honest to God didn’t know how to survive this. He kept taking long, deep breaths, trying to use techniques that he’d learned at nineteen to get through basic training. La Ferme was four weeks of fucking mind games from sadistic corporals and adjudants, on top of the type of training that was really physical torture. If he could survive that, he could handle this.

Being home again.

The intensity, the cruelty, the confusion of warmth and guilt and pain that was his reaction to being here. How could his cousins just hug him? Show tears for him? How could his grandfather just snap at him that it was about time he came home, as if he’d always had that home to come to? How could his aunts and uncles rush to grab his shoulders and kiss his cheeks, as if they were in some way still the village that had raised him? The ring that had been handed down from blood descendant to blood descendant for centuries burned against his chest, so much not his.

And God, but he wanted it.

He glowered broodingly at Elena Lyon, over there dancing with a group that included Antoine Vallier. Could she quit fucking laughing up at that asshole every time she did a particularly low jive with her hips or bounced with particular enthusiasm? What were they, partners in crime? Or just…partners? With some kind of open relationship, maybe, where she got to pick up men in Italy?

Or had she genuinely just been softening him up on that terrace in Italy, so she’d have more impact when she dropped her bombshell?

He retreated under the old plane tree, where Tante Colette had retired as the night deepened, and sat on the ground by her chair.

How often had they done that, as kids and teenagers? Seen their grandfather walking alone or their grandmother back then, too, or Tante Colette in her garden, and joined them to talk, one on one, away from all the other cousins and family. Knowing how hard it was to find a private moment with his thoughts now as captain, he wondered wryly how often his elders had needed space, too…and instead always found themselves in the position of wise old counsel every time they tried to get alone.

He glanced up at his aunt to see if she looked desperate for solitude, but she looked profoundly contented.

It made him feel as if he was crouched by a fire, warming his hands and his whole body.

“It’s good to have you back,” Tante Colette said quietly.

Was it? Why did they seem to find it so much easier to welcome him than he did to be welcomed? It hurt so damn bad. He didn’t deserve this generous welcome at all. He’d missed fifteen years of their lives. Just because he couldn’t believe in them.

“My shoulder might be dislocated,” he said wryly, rubbing it. Every time Matt got too choked up over having him back, his burly cousin punched him in the exact same spot. His back was starting to ache a little, too, because Matt was getting increasingly sappy with the flow of good wine and had grabbed Lucien in a bear hug three times in the past hour.

They were good aches.

They were unbearable.

“Why’d you do it?” he said suddenly, roughly. “Send Elena Lyon to find me?”

Tante Colette gave him one of those looks, an eyebrow raised. “First of all, your grandfather was the one who said that as long as I was having her find all Léo Dubois’s descendants, maybe I could have her do something useful and find you, too.”

Really? Lucien hugged his upraised knee, hard, trying to hold himself together.

“Which is about like him,” Tante Colette said grumpily. “Put his oar in when I’m already planning to do something, so he can claim credit.”

Some odd part of Lucien relaxed a little. So those two hadn’t changed. “Good to see you two speaking to each other these days.”

Tante Colette snorted. “You might call it good.”

Lucien actually smiled. His younger cousins had grown into men without him. But Tante Colette and his grandfather were still Tante Colette and his…oh. Yeah.

That fierce, angry pain again. The one that he had closed off from himself so long ago. Julien Fontaine, Captain in the Foreign Legion, had no past and no family but the Legion, like every other man around him. He was whole.

He’d amputated his old identity from himself as if the words Lucien Rosier were full of gangrene. And now that old limb was aching in an absurd wish to grow back.

You know, this is, too, your fault, Elena Lyon. I was perfectly fine until you found me.

Or at least doing an excellent job of pretending to be perfectly fine.

“Your father still acting like a bastard?”

Lucien said nothing for a moment. Then, his jaw hard, “Well, as he’s pointed out, he’s not my father.” Even though, what the fuck else was Lucien supposed to call him? Michel?

The two had come face to face, but it had been nothing like the greeting from Raoul, Matt, Damien, and Tristan. Michel Rosier had been stiff and glared at everyone else in the family, clearly persuaded that they had tricked him by not warning him Lucien would be at the wedding. Apparently Lucien’s former father spent most of his time in Paris now and had only come home for the wedding because it would have been such an unforgivable lapse in family feeling if he hadn’t.

Michel hadn’t even been happy to see that the man who had loved him as a father for eighteen damn years was still alive. As if Lucien’s continued existence was just a reminder of Michel’s waste of those same eighteen years on a fraud.

Michel Rosier had aged badly into sixty since he’d last rejected Lucien and looked now like one of those stereotypes of the bloated businessman, and Lucien wished he could get a more vindictive satisfaction out of it, but he mostly just wished he could escape back to Corsica.

He focused on Elena. She was easy to focus on. So easy, compared to everything else. Those generous breasts and slim waist and the way her hips kept twisting to the music, the way that auburn hair slid across her back and made his palms itch. She twisted it up to the top of her head as he watched, laughing, holding it there a moment as she danced to let her nape cool.

Yeah, she was easy to watch. Easy to think about. Desire and the possibility of pleasure, so very, very simple in the midst of all these impossible emotions. He wanted to just walk over to her, pull her to him, and walk off into the night. And think about nothing but her body, until dawn.

Plus, she was right. It wasn’t her fault. Her willingness to interfere in his life and overturn it had at least been meant well. So had his running away, in fact—an attempt to erase his own wrongness—but he was responsible for his own decisions. God, he’d grown so much better at making decisions since he was nineteen years old. His chest expanded with a kind of relief at his own strength now, and his so much greater ability to handle things. Yes, even this. He knew he’d done a wrong thing to run away back then, and yet…thank God for the Legion and the man it had helped him become.

“Got a hair clasp?” he asked his aunt.

“Layla is bound to have something.” Tante Colette beckoned to Matt’s fiancée, who left the dance floor cheerfully and smiled down at Lucien.

He found himself smiling back. Dealing with his cousins might bring a surge of far too many emotions, but their fiancées seemed fairly straightforward. Friendly, unknown, happy to welcome him. Insane to think that some of his cousins were getting married now.

His cousins. His cousins.

He touched his dog tags and the ring as Layla left again, an extra elastic off her wrist now in his hand.

“You know you shouldn’t have given me Niccolò’s ring,” he said, very softly, making sure no one near them could possibly overhear and try to grab it from him. It burned against his chest.

“You seemed to have trouble with the family motto.” A glint of dry, warm humor in his aunt’s eyes. “So I thought I’d give you a reminder.”

J’y suis, j’y reste.

I am here and here I’ll stay.

He rubbed the back of his head, the familiar short military cut. “Tante Colette. It’s not my family motto.”

“Lucien Rosier.” Tante Colette locked eyes with him, her voice gone stern. “That’s enough.”

It was the voice that had cut through five squabbling boys and got them to sit their butts down and behave. He blinked and kept silent. When Tante Colette got fed up with someone’s behavior, the boy in question had always known better than to backtalk.

It was the way he spoke to his men when he needed to cut through chuff, he realized. One of the skills that had helped him rise to command. In those early days, he’d mimicked her and his grandfather.

“Fifteen years. Is that any way to behave? Never calling, never writing. Even your parents raised you better than that.”

His parents had been pretty embroiled in their own problems with each other. Lucien remembered spending much more of his time running around with his cousins and seeking out his grandfather or grandmother or Tante Colette when he needed the help of someone with age and experience. But of course whatever aunt or uncle or grandparent who happened to discover their latest outrageous exploit was expected by the other adults to lay down the law. And the cousins had been expected to listen, too.

Well. Expected.

Might be more accurate to say that there were stern repercussions if they didn’t. Mostly involving hard work that might keep them out of trouble.

“You’re worse than your grandfather when it comes to stubborn.”

Colette knew very well that he had not inherited any genetic traits from Jean-Jacques Rosier. “Tante Colette…”

A stern, wrinkled finger jabbed straight at him. “You be quiet. I’m the step-sibling. If you want to tell me your story that only blood family can be real family, well…I don’t want to listen.”

Fair enough. Nobody who was in the same situation liked to listen to another man whining. Deal with it and keep going.

If his parents hadn’t divorced at the same time, if his father had said it didn’t matter and that, in all the ways that counted, Lucien was still his son…who knew? Maybe he could have dealt with it better. But that hadn’t happened. And in the destruction of his own place in life, Lucien had gone ahead and destroyed everything else so that he could start over.

Only here they were. Not destroyed.

Still absurdly willing to stretch out a hand to him.

He got up abruptly, at the suspicion Raoul was eyeing him and about to head over with an extra glass of wine in his hand. Instead he headed toward what was simple.

Elena Lyon, dancing with a pure joy in her body that he would absolutely love to share.

***

Elena stiffened when Lucien’s big body slipped into the spot Antoine had just abandoned to fit next to hers on the dance floor, but she didn’t have it in her to shut out a dancer trying to overcome his sense of not belonging and join in the fun, so she gave him a big smile and angled her body to give him room in the circle. He danced better than she had expected. Who knew those lean hips could relax and twist?

He also danced with a kind of focus. On her.

She lifted the hair from her nape, feeling heat rising. At least with the dance floor lighting and the exertion, nobody could tell if she blushed on top of it. What was he doing over here still paying attention to her when he had his whole family to deal with?

A big hand scooped her hair up for her and slipped a ponytail holder around it. Badly. Her hair immediately slipped straight down again. But it was a thoughtful gesture, and she’d had two or three glasses of wine so far, so she laughed and redid it with enough twists to actually hold her slippery hair.

Lucien looked satisfied. The music shifted to a swing dance, and Elena started to head off the floor, to get a drink and enjoy the show provided by whichever couples were bound to hit the floor. Swing dance showdowns happened every wedding. And she should know, because she went to every wedding she could—she loved weddings.

A hand snaked out and closed firmly around her wrist. Lucien laughed, wicked, and pulled her right back to him, taking both her hands.

Oh, he could dance. He could really dance. He could dance way the hell better than she could, but he was so good at leading, he made up for the gaps in her knowledge, spinning her firmly, catching her, dipping her almost to the floor, his eyes vivid blue as he looked down at her. He knew how to move.

As she relaxed into his authority on the floor and learned to trust his lead, she got better and better, too, until she was having the best damn time. She had to give him all her focus to follow, but she had the vague sense of his cousins and family around the fringes, clapping and grinning, too, as they watched.

“Ready?” Lucien mouthed to her.

Ready for what?

He rolled her up to his body and flipped her right over his shoulder.

Elena landed with a gasp, laughing with delight. She had never had so much fun dancing in her life. Lucien roped her back into him and dipped her, and the music ended. His face was alive with laughter, as if he had forgotten all his troubles, and it was all from dancing with her.

His cousins were laughing and cheering, his aunts and uncles looking at him with a kind of warm approval, as if they’d recognized him again, and the savvy DJ started right into something else that Elena recognized vaguely as another music trend from the World War II dance halls, or, here, the bals clandestins.

“He’s always been the best dancer,” Tristan told her, coming up as he pulled Malorie onto the floor. “You picked a good one.” His eyes flicked over her once, in intrigued assessment, and flicked to Lucien, and then he shifted on to give himself space to dance with Malorie. Tristan loved to dance, too.

“Didn’t you spend fifteen years in the Legion?” Elena asked Lucien suspiciously. “Where did you learn how to dance like that?”

“You’d be surprised what restless legionnaires get up to.” Lucien pulled her back into him, his hand on her back. It took her a second to pick up the new steps, but his hand was firm and confident, and he gave her the time.

“You guys dance together?”

“I’ve seen it happen. Especially when they’re drunk around Christmas. But no, I learned…hell, I can’t even remember when I learned the first steps. You just kind of grow up dancing in this family. And my grandparents always loved swing and jitterbugs, and paso doble and waltzes and all that, too. So of course every wedding or party of any kind, we had some, for them.”

Elena looked around in astonished delight at this new vision of Jean-Jacques Rosier and the wife she hadn’t really known, and presumably Colette Delatour. She’d seen old photos of them. Colette Delatour could totally have killed it during the Occupation in those secret balls out in groves in the woods, or on the top floors of attics, with someone on the accordion and a hat passed around to pay him.

And there Layla was, pulling at Jean-Jacques Rosier’s hands, laughing up at him until she got him on the dance floor. Matt was taking Colette, the big, growly guy careful with her old bones, but not so careful he’d insult her. He hit it just right, not the twists and dips, but the steps and some slow spins of the jitterbug, doing most of the turning and twisting himself around her, rather than spinning her. Layla danced out to arm’s length from Monsieur Rosier, laughing, curls flying, and spun back gently. The old hero wasn’t moving all that much himself, but he still knew how to lead, apparently, and he looked down at Layla with that kind of compressed-lip indulgence of his, as if she was perhaps a young interloper but he liked her anyway.

Damien and Jess hit the floor, and Raoul and Allegra, and that was Damien’s father Louis Rosier with his wife Véronique. Tristan’s parents, Laurent and Annick. A few more couples, she didn’t know all of them. A glimpse of Antoine, standing with his hands in his pockets by the pavilion entrance. Lucien’s cousins blocked him from view, forming a loose circle around Lucien and Elena, catching Lucien’s eyes occasionally and grinning as they danced.

Dancing with Lucien was fun. He could catch her even when she stumbled, even when she went into the move wrong. He could lift her, he could dip her, he could throw her, and he could make sure she found her feet. He made sure she had a good time. And from that wicked, laughing expression on his face, he enjoyed every minute of it.

The DJ finally let them have a slow dance break, and Lucien cocked an eyebrow at her, but at least Elena was still too smart for that, and she headed off the floor to get some water. His cousins were laughing and talking to him, and even Lucien looked relaxed with them, still laughing, so much ice broken. Everybody looked so happy, as if their world was all whole again, and Elena grinned at them over the glass she had discovered empty and looked around for a waiter with another bottle.

Lucien re-appeared by her side with a bottle of water in one hand and filled her glass.

“Thanks.” She pressed the cold glass to her hot cheeks.

He downed a glass himself and blotted his forehead with the sleeve of his T-shirt, smiling down at her. “Want to get some fresh air?”

Hmm. Yes, but…maybe not. There was a pretty clear path that could go down.

“I still wanted to talk to you,” he said.

It’s Lucien, she reminded herself. He might actually mean that.

But in her history of men trying to get her off by herself since the age of thirteen, never had they ever really just wanted to talk to her. Except for Antoine, but he was special. He never stole her things, and he never tried to get his hands under her shirt, either. He was the one who had taught her there were good guys. As had Lucien, when he had saved her.

Well…might as well finish shattering those illusions from the start, right? Then you won’t have those daydreams pestering you anymore.

Still hated to let them go, though. She sighed as she left the pavilion that had been put up for the wedding and walked out amid the rows of roses. They were budding.

Her breathing slowed closer to normal as they walked, the fresh air drying the glow on her cheeks. Lucien reached out a hand to trail over the buds, that wicked laughter on the dance floor fading to an expression so complex that she wanted to hug him. Every time she let one of her softer instincts slip out around men, they always treated it like a crack in her defenses that they’d been happy to crowbar open to take advantage of her, though.

“The harvest will start soon.” He struggled so hard to keep his voice neutral that…oh, screw it. She reached out and squeezed his forearm.

He broke a bud off, stripped it of its thorns, and tucked it into her hair. She touched it, profoundly unsettled by such a romantic gesture.

“I wanted to apologize.” The dancing had relaxed his body, and his voice had regained that calm that had been so powerfully persuasive that evening in Italy. His quiet was like the night spreading out around them after the loud energy of the dance floor. Refreshing. Reassuring. “For what I said earlier.”

Oh. Elena blinked rapidly, against a stirring of confusion. She couldn’t actually remember the last time a man had apologized to her.

Lucien faced her, so big, his expression hard to read in the moonlight, the color gone from him so that he was all tones of shadow. “You’re right. I made my choices. If I have a hard time dealing with the consequences, I shouldn’t take it out on you.”

Elena stared up at him, dumbfounded. That was a full and open apology. She had no idea what to make of it. When men did something wrong to her, they usually tried to insist that it was all her fault.

“So I’m sorry.” Lucien cupped her cheek. She didn’t know how his voice had gained so much power over her so fast. It was such a deep strong voice, his tone so calm, his eyes so level, that it felt as if she could throw herself into that voice and it would wrap her up, and she would finally, finally be home. “Especially if what you said is true, and I managed to hurt you.”

Her nose stung, for no good reason. She cleared her throat, completely disoriented. Since no man had ever apologized to her before, she wasn’t quite sure what to do when that man was also hitting on her. Was she supposed to accept the apology? Didn’t that open the door to him continuing to hit on her?

Was that a door she wanted open or closed?

When in doubt…raise your defenses. He needn’t think she was a sucker for any good dancer who showed up. Even if good dancing was pretty hard to resist. She folded her arms and raised a mocking eyebrow. “Why are you sorry now? Horny again?”

She knew what men wanted out of her. They’d never given a damn about her when she was too young for sex, and she still hadn’t even understood what sex was when they’d started making it clear to her that now that her breasts were starting to bud, she might be worth their time. She’d done everything she could as an adult to turn attractiveness into her strength, something she owned and could take joy in, rather than something they always tried to steal from her, but sometimes…well, she made a hero out of a man in her own stupid head that still insisted on trying to find a hero, and that idealization left a chink in her armor, where he could hurt her.

“Wishing you hadn’t wasted a chance at an easy lay?” she added. Trying to close that chink, too late.

There. Take that, hot, laughing man on the dance floor. I am not stupid.

Lucien was silent for a moment, gazing down at her, and all she could tell from his expression was that his eyes had faintly narrowed, searching. “I guess you could say that,” he allowed finally. “Your way of thinking about it sounds a hell of a lot more contemptuous of us both than mine did, though.”

“Probably best to let it go,” she said kindly. “I know weddings are supposed to make women desperate, but really…it’s not Italy.” Where all the romance in the world could hide the fact that they were really just talking about an easy lay. Where sex just for the pure joy of it seemed like the way the world should work.

He studied her a moment, not so much annoyed as analytical. Thoughtful. Trying to get into her head. “Want to go for a drive?”

“What?”

He reached for a strand of hair that had fallen loose by her face and drew it through his fingers, watching her as if he could see every hair that shivered at his touch. She liked the way he hit on her so much. The way he didn’t just grab for the sexy bits. He gave her all this space to show whether she was willing or not.

“To Italy,” he said. “It’s only a few hours away. Nice night for a ride.”

Yes. Wrap her body around him on that bike of his, lay her head on his back, feel the powerful thrum of the motor between her thighs as they followed the coast, the moon shining on the water as they cut fast through the night to somewhere romance came true.

But in real life, you’d have to wear a helmet and your butt would start to ache from sitting in one position so long.

“You’re using me to run away,” she realized slowly. “For a distraction.”

She didn’t know why that had to hurt so badly. That’s what you get for making a hero out of a man. Stupid hopes. How many times had Antoine warned her about that where Lucien Rosier was concerned?

He raised his eyebrows. “What were you using me for?”

She hadn’t been using him. This language of use and anger getting ever more thickly layered over something that had been seductive and alluring made her uneasy. Sad. “I was just dancing. Just having fun.”

His big hand slid into the falling hair at the nape of her neck and massaged there, ever so gently. “In Italy.” His voice was coaxingly soft. “What about then?”

That warm, massaging touch was almost irresistible. But she was tough, and she would resist it. She would. “In Italy, I was distracted, too. Now I’m not distracted anymore.”

He was silent for a moment. Then his palm ghosted, not really touching, down her arm, to curve under her hand. He gazed down at her smaller hand resting in his a moment and then smiled a little and stroked his thumb over her knuckles. And only then did she realize she probably should have pulled her hand away.

He was so gentle. So confidently willing to expose his own attraction to her, without insisting she accept that attraction. Always leaving her space to pull away. She liked it so damn much.

“What was your distraction?” he murmured, his lips curving just faintly, a hungry anticipation for her answer that he was trying to keep contained.

Her gaze tracked involuntarily over that big body, and a tide of heat ran up her own body to her cheeks. He made every hair on her skin try to lift toward him, for more of that seductive gentleness. That combination—lethal and strong and probably ruthless, and all of that gentled for her.

“The sunset,” she said. “I told you.”

“There’s a moon.” He linked her fingers with his and brought them to rub her knuckles against his jaw. “Shining so bright over a field of roses we can see the buds in it. That’s pretty romantic.”

Damn it. He was right about that. Especially when the man standing in that field of roses was her very own hero, returned at last from the wars. And he was patient, and he was tough, and he needed her in some way. And when he let himself go on the dance floor, he had such fun with their bodies together.

She frowned at him. “You’re far too good at this. Seducing.”

He laughed a little, low in his throat. He knows he’s good at seducing, she realized. He’s practiced this. Fifteen years in the Legion with the only women he meets always strangers. Of course he has. “I’ve got a very enticing goal,” he said.

She kind of liked that. Being a goal. Someone he was willing to work toward, not someone he just grabbed as if she was his because he wanted her.

“Forgetting all your troubles through a bit of quick sexual oblivion?” She meant for the question to come out ironic, but instead she was afraid it sounded wistful. Because that sounded pretty nice—sexual oblivion with him—and yet…they weren’t in Italy anymore. They weren’t two strangers in the night.

“What troubles?” He managed the irony much better than she did. “I’ve just come home after fifteen years away, and everyone welcomed me with open arms. Exactly the opposite of what I expected. What troubles could I have?”

Hell if she knew. Merde, the number of fantasies she’d had as a kid of being exactly in his shoes at that moment—she’d found her family, they were beautiful, they loved her, they’d been looking for her all her life and were so happy to have her home.

“You’re in the wrong,” she guessed. “You feel in the wrong.” Yeah, she knew about that.

“All the ways of wrong there are. I—” He broke off and shook his head, dropping her hand to fold his arms across his chest and gaze out over the roses. “Forget it. You wouldn’t understand.”

Jesus, she got sick of men sometimes. With their absolute conviction that they were the center of the universe. “Try me,” she said dryly.

He gestured suddenly. “They took me in. They loved me. They raised me. And all the time, I was like some damn…damn…cuckoo bird that my mother planted in this family to make them waste their resources on me. When I was never part of them at all.”

Yeah. She knew about that. And she realized, suddenly, that she was furious with him. So angry she could hit him, shake him, do anything to break through that damn oblivion of his. “Like the ugly duckling,” she said flatly.

“What?” He looked confused.

Good. “The egg that ended up in the wrong family, so he didn’t look like the others, and all the ducks picked on him and made fun of him and chased him away.”

“Well…no,” he said slowly. “Not like that. Worse. I was part of this family. Until I wasn’t.”

Was that worse? Was it really? Maybe he thought so. Hell, maybe it really was. She’d never had the opportunity to find out. “But then he grew up into a swan, though, so that was okay,” she said. “Because it was a boy ugly duckling, right? Would have been a sad flip on that story to make it a girl ugly duckling and see what happened to her when she started growing attractive.”

She had to give Lucien credit, he focused on her at that. Really focused, his eyebrows drawing together. And she regretted it immediately, because, as satisfying as it was to break through his pity party, she hated talking about her past or even remembering who she had once been.

“Tell me,” he said slowly, reaching for her hand. “What did happen to her, when she started growing attractive?”

She pulled her hand away. “She had to learn to fend for herself, that’s what.” She turned back toward the pavilion.

He walked beside her, frowning down at her as if he was measuring the difference between their sizes. Yeah, she’d had to measure that kind of difference plenty of times. “No one was around to help her with that?”

She slanted a glance up at him. He’d filled out a lot more since he was nineteen, but even back then he’d been this tall and developing that breadth in his shoulders. “Maybe once.”

It didn’t jog his memory at all. Good. But it did jog hers. Once upon a time he had rescued her.

“How many times did she need help?” Lucien said. “More than once?”

“I’m thirsty.” Elena headed toward the pavilion entrance. A cigarette gleamed in the shadows a few paces outside the tent door as she passed.

“Everything okay?” Antoine said.

She started. Had he been out here watching them all this time? She smiled at him to let him know everything was fine, but he wasn’t even looking at her. His eyes were locked on Lucien’s.

Purée but men were annoying sometimes.

“Just thirsty,” she said, and went into the tent. The water bottles on the tables were all empty again, so she ended up serving herself from one of the white wine bottles. Almost immediately, as a general wooziness sank through her, she realized she’d just slipped over her limit, going from loose and easy to slurred and, knowing her, a tendency to cling and get maudlin.

Damn.

She went back outside, thinking maybe she could sit somewhere until her head cleared a bit and she didn’t embarrass herself. Antoine and Lucien were no longer facing off like two men warring for dominance, so whatever dog-growling thing they had had to do had worked out all right, but Lucien was frowning, looking across at his Tante Colette under the plane tree as if he wanted to ask her a question. Antoine looked as if he was very ready to go home.

Maybe she was, too. She did love dancing all night, but…she was so highly tempted to just slouch onto Lucien’s chest and let him hold her up that she’d probably do better to leave while she still had her pride.

“Ready to go?” she asked Antoine.

He took a sharp pull of his cigarette and stubbed it out. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Lucien moved sharply. “You go home with him?” His voice had gone low and stern, and she wasn’t sure he even realized that he had just shifted to block their path out of there.

Antoine gave him a slow, mean smile and tucked Elena’s hand in his arm.

Seriously, what the hell was up with Antoine? “I don’t think I should drive,” she explained.

“What about him?” Lucien said hard. He was looking at Antoine with controlled hostility, like a man who was usually quite efficient at ridding himself of enemies.

“Not a drop,” Antoine told him sweetly. Yeah, because he didn’t want to chance any exposure of weakness around the Rosiers. Antoine was nuts where they were concerned. Elena rested her head against his shoulder a second, feeling dizzy.

Lucien’s jaw tightened. He looked from Antoine to her. “I haven’t been drinking.” It was crazy how erotic she found the change in his tone when he spoke to her, that gentleness that entered it, such a contrast with the hardness for Antoine. “I can take you.”

Oh, please. “Will you quit trying to use any excuse to escape dealing with your family?” Elena demanded, exasperated.

“Yeah, you’re pissing us both off with that,” Antoine said.

Lucien gave him a sharp, searching look.

“Although, in his defense, he probably doesn’t think of you as any excuse, Lena,” Antoine said dryly, with that edge to his voice that seemed like the opening of a knife fight.

“You told me in Italy that you didn’t have a boyfriend,” Lucien said to Elena, his voice stern. “Were you lying to me about that, too?”

Wait a minute. “I didn’t tell any lies!” She’d gotten a little ensnared by the romantic sunset, but he was the one who was so damn good at seducing. He should at least take some of the responsibility.

“Then why’s he taking you home?” Lucien demanded aggressively.

“Not really your business, is it?” Antoine said, in a voice as sweet as honey to a fly.

Elena sighed heavily. “I’m just going to go sit over here for a while, okay? Leave you two to it.”

She abandoned them for the plane tree, under which Madame Delatour now sat, resting from the dancing and maybe all the noise under the pavilion. Elena sank to the ground near her chair.

“Sorry,” she told Madame Delatour. “I didn’t feel like dealing with two men acting like idiots right now.”

“Who ever does?” the old hero said, amused. She looked tired, although in a contented way. It was after midnight, quite late for a ninety-seven-year-old.

“Do you want us to take you home, too?” Elena’s apartment was in the old part of Sainte-Mère, so it would be easy enough to take the older woman with them. Antoine lived in Grasse, but since he was going to be dropping her off, he might as well drop both of them. Damn. How was she going to get her car back tomorrow? That was what she got for not getting back from Italy in time to ride with Antoine as he’d suggested.

“It’s good to be here,” Colette said, with that profound, quiet peace in her. Elena smiled and inched closer. Colette Delatour was another person she hero-worshiped, as well she should.

“You did a good job there,” Colette said, and Elena flushed with pleasure.

“I was afraid he wouldn’t come,” she confessed. “I thought I had screwed up.”

“You tried. I like to hope that matters more than screwing up,” Colette said.

Elena rested her head on her knees, relaxing. She loved it when that tough old lady said things like screwing up. She’d bet Colette had cursed like a sailor back in the Resistance sometimes. “You’re right,” she said softly. “It does.”

Elena was absolutely determined to break the cycle that had started with her grandmother, to tell those fucking Nazis that their destruction of her family stopped finally, finally with her. But even if she didn’t break the cycle, even if she never learned how to make a strong family for herself, Colette Delatour, and Jean-Jacques Rosier, and all the people in their cell had tried. It wasn’t their fault that everything hadn’t come up roses for a little girl smuggled away in them from a hatred so strong it had killed her parents, killed everyone who loved her, and tried to kill her.

“There you are,” a cheerful voice exclaimed over by the tent, Tristan appearing from it beside Lucien. Elena had never met anyone in her life who had such a warm voice as Tristan. Laughter almost always seemed to lurk in it, somewhere deep down in its depths even when he wasn’t amused, as if it was ready to leap out and take over in any and all conditions. Tristan draped his arm over Lucien’s shoulders and gave them a squeeze.

Elena smiled. She had always liked Tristan. He’d been only a year ahead of her in school and so full of charm and niceness pretty much everybody had liked him. Hell, he’d been nice even to her, the spotty, hopeless example of humanity she’d been at thirteen.

She hugged herself just at the memory of how rare niceness had been in her life back then and how much even the most careless gifts of it—a friendly word from the cute, older Tristan, for example—had meant. It was stupid, but sometimes there was an ache in her middle still to this day from that time.

“We were looking for you,” Tristan told Lucien. “We have to take silly pictures with Damien. Apparently it’s a wedding tradition. Jess said so.”

Elena laughed. Good for Jess. She gave herself a tiny pat of her knee in self-congratulations: You did a good job finding that one, too.

Antoine stepped back from the two cousins and glanced around for Elena, his expression so intensely neutral that Elena stood and brushed off her dress. “I have to go now,” she said, looking down at the older woman. “Thank you for inviting me.”

“You helped bring them together,” Madame Colette said. “Did you ever tell them?”

“I thought I was your secret ally.” Like Madame Colette used to have back in the war, only a lot safer, because no one was going to torture or kill Elena if she got caught. Elena had found something subtly consoling about the mental game of secret allies, as if she was still part of that war only the healing end of it. The one who could help stitch people together, apply bandages, make them all whole. Soothe those last raw edges.

Colette smiled at her. Colette Delatour was tough as they came with her great-nephews, but she almost always had a gentleness for Elena. Elena hoped that didn’t mean the old hero found her fragile or something. Elena, too, was as tough as they came. I will survive, and I will thrive, and I will beat those Nazis at last and raise a happy daughter one day.

“Yes, but I think we’ve finished,” Colette said. “You’ve brought the last one home.”

Antoine joined them. Behind him, Tristan was dragging Lucien into the big tent. Good for Tristan. Lucien gave her a look back as if he was hoping she would rescue him, which made her want to smack him. They’re welcoming you with open arms. It’s the prodigal son’s dream come true. Go with it!

“I did mention to Malorie,” she said. “So I guess the secret is out.” She might have made a lousy Resistance fighter. It wasn’t that she truly trusted people, it was that she wanted to trust them so damn bad.

Colette smiled at her.

“Can we go now?” Antoine asked under his breath. And more audibly and courteously, “Madame Delatour, I would be happy to give you a ride, too, if you want one.”

“I think I’ll sleep here,” Madame Delatour said, which made Elena’s eyebrows go up. Colette usually made it a point of pride not to sleep in her old childhood home, now her stepbrother’s, and sometimes Elena worried that this recent, very subtle relaxation between the two old war heroes was a sign of the last stretch of age. Going gently into—no, not into that dark night. Into a beautiful sunset that stretched across the valley and its mountains, maybe.

Gentle was good. So many scary things in life could be made better with a little gentleness.

She turned her face into the cool car window as they headed home and closed her eyes, drifting into a dream of incredible gentleness in which a callused thumb and index finger softly, softly caressed one lock of her hair. Brushed almost-not-touching over her shoulder. Let her fall into him.